COE ET: 


_ INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 


PRO PATRIA PER ORBIS CONCORDIAM 


= 
Published monthly by the 
American Association for International Conciliation 
Entered as second class matter at New York, N. Y. 
Postoffice, February 23, 1909, under act of July 16, 1894 


THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA 





BY 


WEILCHING W. YEN 


Second Secretary of the Imperial Chinese Legation 
Washington, D. C. 


JUNE, 1909, No. 19 


American Association for International Conciliation 
Sub-station 84 (501 West 116th Street) 
New York City 


There are many ways of reading Chinese thought 
placed on record in the shape of words written or 
spoken. The customary method even for the educated 
among us has been to get hold of a Chinese term or a 
short sentence, remove it from its context and trans- 
late its syllables literally. The caricatures which re- 
sult have been the basis of many of our prejudices 
regarding the unfathomable nature of the Chinese soul. 
These prejudices are being fast overcome by the 
efforts now being made with serious good will to grasp 
not the words, but the broad views of Chinese thought. 

Dr. Wei-ching W. Yen’s paper is an excellent speci- 
men of Chinese thought expressed in good English. 
It has been written by a native accustomed to write 
and to think in his own language. 


FRIEDRICH HirTH 
Columbia University 


THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA 


The Hon. John W. Foster, in a magazine article on 
China and her present conditions, asserts that ‘‘ proba- 
bly in no previous period of the history of the human 
race has there been awakened such concentrated at- 
tention to one portion of the earth and its inhabitants.”’ 
One might add to this dictum and declare that from 
the very beginning of China’s intercourse with the 
West, her people and her civilization have been a fruit- 
ful and apparently interesting subject to contributors 
to magazines and makers of books. She has been 
lauded to the skies by some and picturesquely abused 
by others. One author inscribes in a weighty volume 
the distinctly peculiar and ridiculous phases of Chinese 
life, and by his amusing stories adds to the gaiety of 
the nations. Another, a distinguished statesman, con- 
tents himself with an inventory of the mineral wealth 
of the Empire, and hopes to rouse the interest of his 
countrymen through the spirit of commercialism. Be- 
tween the globe-trotter, who spends his week in each 
of the principal treaty-ports, and the missionary, who 
has lived in Chung Kuo so long that he actually be- 
comes homesick when he visits his native land, there 
has arisen a literature on things Chinese that is at once 
bizarre and learned, 

The singular feature of this outpour of printed mat- 
ter is that it is almost entirely the result of the labors 
of foreign writers. Until very recent years, there were 
very few of our people who had mastered foreign 
languages, and who could express their views of the 
past and present of their country to the West. Nor 
did the Government realize, and, indeed, has not yet 


3 


realized, the tremendous advantages of inspiring and 
paying for ‘‘ write-ups” to secure the goodwill and ap- 
proval of the world. Whether she is praised or abused, 
China has pursued the even tenor of her way, acting 
according to her best light and to her sense of right 
and wrong. 

We have a saying that between right and wrong the 
public is an equitable judge; or in the words of Sir 
Robert Hart, ‘‘they (the Chinese) believe in right so 
firmly that they scorn to think it requires to be sup- 
ported or enforced by might.” That this saying is 
based on a correct philosophical conception and that 
our belief is also the guiding principle of the great 
men of other nations is proved by the numerous foreign 
statesmen and writers that have rushed to our defense 
whenever the honor and fair name of China have been 
unjustly assailed or her actions misconstrued. Noth- 
ing in the history of the foreign relations of the Em- 
pire has afforded us more gratification and filled us 
with more pride and hope than the staunch friendship 
and deep affection which so many foreigners, generally 
the ones that know us best, have for China. 

It is hardly possible to restrain a smile when we read 
that ‘‘no one knows or ever will know the Chinese, 
the most comprehensible, inscrutable, contradictory, 
logical, illogical people on earth.” ‘This sounds some- 
thing like a characterization, in a comic paper, of 
woman, and is not to be taken seriously. The fact is, 
we are very much like other human beings, with to be 
sure some peculiarities, due to centuries of segregation 
from other nations. But we have essentially ‘‘the 
same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows, the 
same susceptibility to pain and the same capacity for 
happiness.” With increased and better acquaintance 


4 


of the world through travel abroad and reading at 
home, the representative men of our country will lose 
many of the traits and discard many of the customs 
that seem peculiar to Westerners. Indeed, we have 
already a class of cosmopolitans, men who have en- 
joyed educational facilities abroad and who are as 
much at home in London or New York as in Peking. 
In recent years, a revolution has taken place in our 
world of thought. Always a nation that delighted in 
books and worshipped literary talent, we have hada 
literature equal in extent and quality to that of Greece 
or Rome. Very few Westerners who have mastered 
our language have not echoed and re-echoed the senti- 
meat that ‘‘untold treasures lie hidden in the rich 
lodes of Chinese literature.” ‘This mine of intellectual 
wealth has been enriched by the translation of the best 
works of the West. John Stuart Mill, Huxley, 
Spencer, Darwin and Henry George, just to mention 
a few of the leading scholars of the modern age, are 
as well known in China as in this country. The 
doctrine of the survival of the fittest is on the lips of 
every thinking Chinese, and its grim significance is 
not iost on a nation that seems to be the center of the 
struggle in the Far East. Western knowledge is being 
absorbed by our young men at home or abroad at a 
rapid rate, and the mental power of a large part of 
four hundred millions of people, formerly concentrated 
on the Confucian classics, is being turned in a new 
direction—the study of the civilization of the West. 
Socially, an agricultural people is being transformed 
in a sudden into a manufacturing and industrial na- 
tion. New desires have given birth to new wants: the 
railway and the steamship must take the place of the 
mule cart, the sedan chair and the houseboat; gas and 


5 


electricity supplant the paper lantern and the oil lamp; 
the roar of the loom bewilders the factory girl who has 
been used to the hand-weaving machine; and the 
smoke of factories and arsenals threatens to soil the 
blue of our skies and make hideous the exterior form 
of nature as it has done in the West. The foreign 
trade of Shanghai is already greater than that of 
Boston, while the greatest sea-port in the world, 
measured by the tonnage of its vessels, is the island 
of Hongkong, a stone’s throw from Canton. 

There is a public opinion in China now that makes 
itself heard and obeyed. No longer is it possible to 
hold to the conception that China stands for a few 
men in power and that their will ic the law of the land. 
As Mr. Elihu Root has recently expressed it, ‘‘ The 
people now, not Governments, make friendship or dis- 
like, sympathy or discord, peace or war between na- 
tions.” The people of China are gradually coming to 
their own, and with the elaborate preparations now 
being made for a constitutional government, it is only 
a question of a few years when a Chinese parliament 
becomes an established fact, and another member of the 
human family added to the ranks of liberal government. 

There are many reasons why China and the United 
States of America should be the best of friends. Geo- 
graphically, we are the two continental countries 
situated on the opposite shores of the Pacific Ocean. 
With the annexation and the acquisition by the United 
States of the Hawaiian and the Philippine Islands, we 
have become next-door neighbors. The completion 
of the Isthmian Canal, an event looked forward to 
with great interest by the whole world, will bring the 
Atlantic seaboard and the Mississippi Valley weeks 
nearer the trade of the Orient. It is a logical conse- 

6 


quence and a consummation devoutly to be wished 
that the relations between the ancient Empire and the 
young Republic should grow more intimate every day. 

From the time of Caleb Cushing, the American 
Minister who arrived in China in 1844, bearing a letter 
from President Tyler to the Emperor Taokuang, Sino- 
American relations have always been friendly. If, as 
the Emperor Taokuang used to command his ministers 
of state to impress on the foreign representatives, the 
Celestial Empire prides itself on keeping good faith in 
its promises and agreements, the United States has 
also taught China to believe through experience that 
it may be trusted to do what is right and just. The 
several treaties concluded between the two nations 
have been on the one hand honorable to the United 
States and on the other fair to China. When China 
desired to establish diplomatic relations with the 
Powers, it was also an American, the Hon. Anson 
Burlingame, that was given the coveted position of an 
envoy. The refusal of the United States of America 
to participate in the opium traffic, or in the caolie 
trade, the absence on her part of any desire to en- 
croach on the territorial rights of China, her action in 
contending for the integrity of China, the recent re- 
mission of a part of the Boxer indemnity, and her 
willingness, in general, to give China a square deal, 
have not failed to make a very favorable impression 
on our people. If there is one commendable quality 
in our people conspicuous by its presence, it is that of 
not forgetting a good turn, and the good offices of this 
country are and will be appreciated by us for many 
years to come. 

The twentieth century is pre-eminently the century 
of international commerce. The struggle for fresh 


7 


markets, to dispose of the surplus products of the field 
and the factory after the full supply of home con- 
sumption, is a very keen one. China, with her teem- 
ing population gradually being infected with the desires 
and wants of the twentieth century but possessing only 
the facilities of an agricultural people to gratify them, 
will become the biggest buyer of the world in the near 
future. A large share of this trade will come to 
America, if the statesmen and merchants of America 
are wise enough to seek forit. Ultimately, the national 
welfare and prosperity of the United States must de- 
pend on foreign markets and the securing of the com- 
mercial prize of the Orient is a coup worthy the 
attention and thought of all patriotic Americans. In 
this competition for commercial supremacy, the good 
will of our people is an asset not to be despised by this 
nation. 

It would be a reflection on the intelligence and 
character of the people of the United States, however, 
were an appeal for closer relations between the vener- 
able Empire and the young Republic to attract atten- 
tion and derive interest simply through the spirit of 
commercialism. The present century is the century of 
internationalism, remarkable for the growth of ex- 
change of ideas and ideals as well as of merchandise 
and commodities. In no former age has the civilization 
of the East come into such close contact with that of 
the West. The East has made and is making an 
honest effort to study the thought and the institutions 
of Europe and America, while this country in particular 
of the nations of the West is endeavoring to under- 
stand the spirit of the East. China has had a civiliza- 
tion of four thousand years and has contributed much 
to the progress of the world. Scores of discoveries, 

8 


which have helped to increase the happiness and wel- 
fare of mankind, must be credited to us. But best of 
all, the Confucian school has evolved a type of man- 
hood with many virtues to commend and deserving 
the serious study and imitation of other nations. 
Chinese civilization, being based on a moral order, has 
imbued its exponents with a profound respect and love 
for the moral relations. It is true very often the spirit 
of the teachings of Confucius is lost in the empty 
forms of ceremony and idle phrases of etiquette, but 
the centuries of discipline could not but leave its im- 
print on our people. We find, therefore, often a spirit 
of ministerial loyalty to the Emperor, of filial piety to 
one’s parent, of devotion on the part of wives to their 
husbands, of affection between brother and brother 
and of constancy to friends that are not emphasized 
in other civilizations. Simplicity of living, patience 
under suffering, industry, contentment and an opti- 
mistic spirit, persistence in one’s undertaking and the 
power to endure are some of the virtues which have 
made Chinese civilization so stable and so venerable. 
Then there is the devotion to and worship of letters, 
politeness towards all, respect for and obedience to the 
law, and last but not least the love for peace and tran- 
quillity. If, therefore, Chinais poor in mechanical ap- 
pliances and scientific knowledge, she may be wealthy 
in those virtues which add to the happiness and 
quality of the life that is lived. In the words of an 
eloquent writer, Europe and America, looking across 
the ocean to the Far East, should be anxious, ‘‘not 
indeed to imitate the forms, but to appropriate the 
inspiration of that ancient world which created man- 
ners, laws, religions, art, whose history is the record 
not merely of the body, but of the soul of mankind, 


9 


and whose spirit, already escaping from the forces in 
which it has found partial embodiment is hovering 
even now at your gates in quest of a new and more 
perfect incarnation.” 

In the hundreds of Chinese students in this country 
that are earnestly and industriously absorbing the best 
the colleges and universities can impart to them, there 
exists a mighty bond of union and an unwritten alli- 
ance between China and America. These young men, 
as one of them strikingly expressed it, form a bridge 
across the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean, on 
which American learning, American ideals, American 
institutions, American inventions, and American manu- 
factures are and will be conveyed to China. The in- 
fluence of such young men, the future leaders of 
China, over their country’s predilections and policies 
will be enormous. Having been fully saturated with 
American ideas and ideals they will transport them to 
and distribute them among their own countrymen. 
‘They will be able to modify the public opinion of 
their countrymen that half a century of ordinary con- 
tact with the Occident cannot modify. They will be 
able to insure a peace and trade in the Far East that 
treaties and military forces cannot insure. In one 
word, these students will be the most effective instru- 
ments through and with which American civilization 
or rather American university education can exert it: 
wonderful influence on the new China.” 


WEI-CHING W. YEN 


10 


The Executive Committee of the Association for International 
Conciliation wish to arouse the interest of the American people 
in the progress of the movement for promoting international peace 
and relations of comity and. good fellowship between nations. 
To this end they print and circulate documents giving information 
as to the progress of these movements, in order that individual 
citizens, the newspaper press, and organizations of various kinds 
may have readily available accurate information on these subjects. 

For the information of those who are not familiar with the work 
of the Association for International Conciliation, a list of its pub- 
lications is subjoined. 


x. Program of the Association, by Baron d}Estournelles de Constant. April, 
1907. 

2. Results of the National Arbitration and Peace Congress, by Andrew Car- 
negie. April, 1907. 

3. A League of Peace, by Andrew Carnegie. November, 1907. 


4. The results of the Second Hague Conference, by Baron d’Estournelles de 
Constant and Hon, David Jayne Hill. January, 1908. 


5. The Work of the Second Hague Conference, by James Brown Scott. Jan- 
uary, 1908, 


6. Possibilities of Intellectual Co-operation Between North and South America, 
by L. S. Rowe. April, 1908. 


7. America and Japan, by George Trumbull Ladd. June, 1908. 
8. The Sanction of International Law, by Elihu Root. July, 1908. 
g. The United States and France, by Barrett Wendell. August, 1908, 


to. The Approach of the Two Americas, by Joaquim Nabuco, September, 
1908, 


11, The United States and Canada, by J. S. Willison. October, 1908. 


12. The Policy of the United States and Japan in the Far East. November, 
1908, 


13. European Sobriety in the Presence of the Balkan Crisis, by Charles Austin 
Beard. December, 1908. 


14. The Logic of International Co-operation, by F. W. Hirst. January, rgo9. 


15. American Ignorance of Oriental Languages, by J. H. DeForest. Feb- 
ruary, 1909. 


16, America and the New Diplomacy, by James Brown Scott. March, rgog. 
17. The Delusion of Militarism, by Charles E. Jefferson. April, 1909. 

18, Address by Elihu Root. May, 1909. 

19. The United States and China, by Wei-ching Yen. June, 1909. 


A small edition of a monthly bibliography of articles having to 
do with international matters is also published and distributed to 
libraries, magazines and newspapers. 

Up to the limit of the editions printed, any one of the above will 
be sent postpaid upon receipt of a request addressed to the Secretary 
of the American Association for International Conciliation, Post 
Office Sub-Station 84, New York, N. Y. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 


NicuHoras Murray BuTLer RicHARD WATSON GILDER 
RicHARD BARTHOLDT STEPHEN Henry OLIN 
Lyman ABBOTT SETH Low 


James SPEYER RoperT A. FRANKS 


COUNCIL OF DIRECTION OF THE 
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 


Lyman Appott, New Yorr. ‘ 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, BosTON. : 
Epwin A, ALDERMAN, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, 
Cuartes H. Ames, Boston, Mass. 

RicHarD BarrHo.pt, M. C., St. Louts, Mo. 
Cuirton R. BRECKENRIDGE, ForT SMITH, ARKANSAS. . 
Wiriiam J. Bryan, Lincoin, Nes. 

T. E. Burton, M. C., CLeEvELAND, Onto. 
Nicuotas Murray Burter, New York. 
ANDREW CARNEGIE, NEW YORK. 

Epwarp Cary, New York. 

JosrepH H. Cuoatre, New York. 

RicHarp H, Dana, Boston, Mass, 

ArTHuR L. DasHer, Macon, Ga. 

Horace FE, Deminc, NEw York. 

Cuarces W. Eviot, CamBRIDGE, Mass. 
Joun W. Foster, Wasuincton, D. C. 
Rosert A. FRANKS, ORANGE, N. J. 

Ricuarp Watson GILDER, NEw York. 
Joun ARTHUR GREENE, NEw York. 

James M. GrEENwoop, Kansas Crry, Mo, 
FRANKLIN H. Heap, Cuicaco, ILt. 

Witiiam J. Ho_ianp, PirrsBurGu, Pa. 
Hamitron Hort, New York. 

James L. HouGuratine, Cuicaco, IL. 
Davip STARR JORDAN, STANFORD UNiversiry, CaL. 
Epmonp Kerry, New York. 

ApovteH Lewisoun, NEw Yor«k. 

SerH Low, New York. 

CLARENCE H. Mackay, New York, 

W. A. Mauony, Co.umsus, Ouro. 

Branpder Matruews, New York. 

W. W. Morrow, San Francisco, CAt. 
Grorce B. McCieLttan, Mayor or New York, 
Levi P. Morron, New York, 

Siras McBrgz, New York. 

Simon NeEwcoms, WaAsuHtinGcTon, D. C. 
StrerHen H, Orin, New York. 

A. V. V. Raymonp, Burrato, N, Y. 

Tra Remsen, BALTimoreE, Mp, 

James Forp Ruopes, Boston, Mass. 
Howarp J. Rocers, Atpany, N. Y. 

Ex.inu Root, Wasuincton, D. C. 

J. G. Scuurman, Iruaca, N. Y. 

Isaac N. SELIGMAN, NEw York. 

F, J. V. Sxirr, Cuicaco, Itv. 

Witiiam M. SLoanze, NEw York. 

Avpert K, Smitey, Lake Mononk, N, Y. 
James SprevER, New York. 

Oscar S, STRAUS, WasuInGcTon, D. C. 

Mrs. Mary Woop Swirt, SAN Francisco, Car, : ee 
GeorGE W. Taytor, M. C., DEMopo.is, ALA, 

O. H. Tirrman, Wasuincron, D. C, 

W. H. To_tman, New York. 

BENJAMIN TRUEBLOOD, Boston, Mass, 

Epwarp Tuck, Paris, FRANCE. 

Wituiam D, WHEELWRIGHT, PoRTLAND, ORE, 


CONCILIATION INTERNATIONALE 
119 RuE DE LA Tour, Paris, FRANCE 
President Fondateur, BAron D’EsTouRNELLES DE CONSTANT 
Member Hague Court, Senator 
Honorary Presidents: BERTHELOT and LEon BourGEots, Senators 
Secretaries General: A. Metin and Jutes Rats 
Treasurer: ALBERT KAHN 





